In this book, I explore the connections between music for early movies (1895-1927) involving the supernatural in the context of the culture of the time in regard to supernatural beliefs and entertainments, particularly spiritualism.

The article discusses the presence of a generative principle called Mōt in a short cosmogony found in the Phoenician History of Philo of Byblos (c. 100 CE). The Phoenician History’s Mōt has been usually understood as the euhemeristic interpretation of a Semitic god of death, which is well documented in late Bronze Age documents from Ugarit. I a…[Read more]

This paper was originally prepared for a meeting of the Methodology Seminar of the Distant Worlds Graduate School (LMU, Munich) and was meant as an introduction to the use of the category of magic in the study of ancient Greek and Roman religions offered to a group of scholars coming from different disciplines.

The study of ancient magic is…[Read more]

This article treats late ancient rabbinic texts (ca. 1st-early 3rd cents. CE), reading them as biology, and following their ideas about the limits and possibilities of reproductive and species variation. I read sources from the tractates of Niddah, Kil’ayim, and Bekhorot, in the Mishnah and Toseta, as expressions of a science of generation, or a b…[Read more]

This thesis follows my earlier work on Aurignacian rock art by drawing a clear line between cave painting in the south of France and the holiest Hebrew script Ktav Ivrit or STA”M. This is an in depth study detailing relationships between Language, Mysticism and Kabbalah, as well as Religious Dogma that answers the question, “Why do all religions…[Read more]

This is a series of brief paradigms that suggest ways of manipulating abstraction, such as Art Language Religion and Politics, for use with a Carlos Ginzburg Evidentiary Paradigm, or other multivariate analysis. The tables in this appendix accompany the Index of Deities and Demons and How the Aleph-Bet Got Its Shape.

This thesis describes the evolution of the alphabet from Upper Paleolithic to present. We draw a direct line from Aurignacian rock art to Hebrew STA”M script and from Auriginal Paganism to Kabbalah using a Ginzburg Evidentiary Paradigm. Provides strategies for quantifying concepts, belief, and abstraction such as Art, Language, Religion, and…[Read more]

This is a formatted version (for e-book readers or printing) of a very long blog post about secular and radical Buddhism. It discusses Stephen Batchelor’s secular Buddhism, Seno’o Giro’s radical Buddhism (as well as its roots in Mahayana philosophy; Nichiren and the Lotus Sutra in particular), and several related topics.

This essay analyzes two recent interactive documentary projects: Sharon Daniel’s Public Secrets (2006), an exploration of the prison industrial complex through the testimonies of female inmates in California, and Zohar Kfir’s Points of View (2014) which “maps” Palestinian video advocacy projects made for and/or disseminated by B’Tselem, a human r…[Read more]

Post Mortem by Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín challenges traditional cinematic conventions of affect and spectacle through a narrative of spaces and bodies that is neither realist, comedic, nor melodramatic. This chapter draws upon affect theories that study the spectacle of cinematic spaces and political bodies in Latin American film. The…[Read more]

Women filled a number of roles in the American cinema music industry, particularly during
the Great War. In addition to serving as cultural barometers for cinematic music
and accompaniment, women were at the heart of innovations in cinema sound
and composition.

***For a copy of the article please write to RNEIS@umich.edu***

While biologists argue about the limits and definition of a species, the urge to cluster and distinguish among the plenitude of lifeforms that populates the planet remains. Contemporary concerns about attempts to clone monkeys and to engineer human-porcine chimeras point to…[Read more]

A reflection on what notions of angels suggest about how late ancient people knew the world and its inhabitants.

In this paper I argue that Philo’s Embassy to Gaius makes use of the literary paradigm
of theatricality, a strategy of representation marked by the portrayal of multiple
and competing discourses amongst those in unequal relations of power, as
well as an emphasis on the arts of acting and discernment. Th e Embassy marks an
appearance of the t…[Read more]

Scholarly reflections on the concept of the will as it is articulated in late ancient texts have centered on the male individual and the difficulties he faces as he tries to train or direct his intentions. By contrast, in this article we seek to explore late ancient concepts and negotiations of the will by considering a cluster of ancient Jewish…[Read more]

The introduction and the methodology chapters of my Ph.D. thesis with the same title.

Quakers enjoy their work. They tend to work in places which share their ambitions to make the world a better place. But how do Quakers respond when things go wrong? What we find is that the work organisation sets out the terms upon which Quakers try to improve the world. Quakers generally accept these terms. But when Quaker and work horizons…[Read more]